


Things Like Memories

by chordatesrock



Category: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bechdel Test Pass, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief, I can't actually remember if Zelda goes back in time or just Link, Post-Canon, Time Travel, awkward!Link is cute, but what 17-year-old would want to live in a 10-year-old body?, everyone Zelda loves used to be dead, readjusting to "normal" life, the queen is very out of the loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chordatesrock/pseuds/chordatesrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zelda reconnects with her mother after Ocarina of Time. She tries to pretend nothing's happened, but it's not that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Like Memories

They sat together in the garden, Princess Zelda and Queen Adelind. The queen was so tall, and the garden as large as memory. It made Zelda feel small, and the long skirt scared her. She couldn’t count on it to stay out of her way if she needed to run, and keeping her face bare made her feel exposed.

“I love you, Mother,” said Zelda. She remembered seeing a Gerudo warrior slice her mother’s back from shoulder to hip, and she remembered staring backward as Impa carried her away. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of that in years.

“What are you up to?” asked the queen, smiling in reserved amusement.

“Nothing at all,” said Zelda. “Would you sing me that lullaby?”

“Of course,” said the queen. “You don’t have to butter me up for that.”

She sang. All the walls Zelda had built up inside herself seemed to break, and she found herself crying. Crying from grief for her family, crying over the lost years of her life and Link’s, crying for the countless hurts she’d had no one to soothe.

Zelda felt a touch behind her and leapt to her feet, reaching for her deku nuts before she realized she had none, and then realized it was only her mother trying to comfort her.

“Zelda!” the queen exclaimed. “What happened?”

“Nothing. You startled me, that’s all,” said Zelda.

“The way you reacted, you’d think I’d hit you,” said the queen. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” said Zelda. It was only instinct: better to react to nothing than to ignore a monster behind her. And yet, it was out of place in a ten-year-old girl safe in the garden with guards and parents around.

Enter one of said guards, stage right, hand tight on Link’s arm as the guardsman dragged him toward the exit.

“Link!” Zelda exclaimed. The guard stopped. “You can let him go,” she said.

The guard let go.

“How do you know this boy?” asked the queen. “Is he the one who hurt you?”

“No!” said Zelda. “He saved my life!”

Her mother looked at her, and blinked. “When was this?”

“I… There’s no need to keep our good guardsman away from his work,” said Zelda. She smiled blandly at him. “Indeed, I would feel safer if he went back to make sure no one _else_ is sneaking around.”

He glanced at her mother, and then got the hint. He left.

Link stood there looking embarrassed. He scuffed at the ground with his foot and half-smiled when he glanced up at her, before looking back down at his feet.

“What happened?” asked the queen. “When did this boy save you?”

“It’s complicated,” said Zelda. “He saved me from Ganondorf.”

“That-- I didn’t know the two of you were ever alone together. No wonder you were so determined to expose him.”

Zelda watched Link. Link looked to Zelda as if asking her to tell him what to do or say.

“Ganondorf didn’t do much to me, personally. I was more concerned about the threat to our country,” said Zelda. “Anyway, I’d rather not talk about it.”

Her mother looked concerned, sympathetic and pitying simultaneously. Zelda first thought that was undeserved-- that, after all, whatever her mother was imagining hadn’t happened-- only to change her mind when she realized it was the closest she was likely to come to getting the last seven years of her life out in the open and having her mother tell her it would all be okay.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” said the queen. “I’ll make sure the boy is rewarded for his service.”

Link blushed.

Zelda laughed. “It’s only a conversation, fairy-boy. How can you be so much braver in a fight than you are talking to my mother?”

Link shrugged helplessly.

“Does he know how to use that sword, then?” asked the queen.

“Expertly,” said Zelda.

“Hmm. We could use some more competent guards.”

Zelda laughed. Her mother laughed. Even Link laughed. They could do this, Zelda decided. They could go back to their old lives. It would work, because they would make it work.


End file.
